“Um. No?” Was it supposed to all be her own doing? “Didn’t have a mommy or daddy for the longest time and didn’t have a name either and then some lady decided I needed a place to stay, so they stuck me in with more people and then with a bunch of kids.” She threw a sidelong glance at the girl who was eyeing the jump that she was using. That always seemed to make them back off just a little bit. “I got the Fells family for my sixth birthday and moved in with them instead. It was weird. But there’s a brother and a sister too. Now they’re all even quieter than I am,” she added with a rather more cheerful note. Oooh, look at that! Briony gave a fascinated little gasp, then her smile brightened. “They’re awesome.” Everyone else on the playground was just so much more boring compared to this. “I wish I had some, but they’d really stick out from my hair…” She patted down her own dark, straight hair. And they would be really obvious if the colour matched her other… unusual parts. “Oh, they flash!” Her fingers tried to form sort of starbursts around the handles of the jump-rope. “Black or white. Sometimes. I don’t really know when. I got bored staring in the mirror that one time.” Standing on one foot with her tail shifting under her clothes to keep her weight balanced out, Briony shrugged. “Holy stuff makes them flash-flash-flash like loads of cameras or something… We had to change church.”
With a pleased hum, Briony pulled on the very ends of her hair and returned both feet to the ground. Tick-tick-tick-tick… If Bubbles really was feeling the prickles then she’d end up feeling more than just that and then that had to lead somewhere else at some point, in her mind. If the other demon had been a normal child, she would have grabbed her hand by now, pushed any sleeves back and walked Incy-Wincy Spider up and down her arm until she was screaming – the new girl deserved nothing less – but she wasn’t. In fact, she thought that if she tried she might get hit harder than Hayden could ever have tried. “No—that was on the other night but I didn’t get to see it. It was a coin-toss between that and Freddy vs Jason. I like the dog that just looks scary without doing anything… They’re always big.” Although in this case, ‘big’ was in comparison to herself, and most things were bigger than her. Who was Rachel? An idiot who hopes I want to make cookies just to spend time with her. Only nine, yes, but still a demon and one with a better grasp on human psychology than most of those around her. “The mommy I got for my sixth birthday. She’s kind of stupid. So is Daddy – Paul – but he’s like a walking spell book.” She grinned, then it faded slightly when she realised that wasn’t the whole family. “Then there’s Hayden and Airla, my brother and sister. Don’t you think Airla is a dumb name?” She really hoped that somehow got back to her just so she had an excuse to start an argument and break Rachel’s perfect Stepford composure. “There’s a whole lot to get away with,” Briony nodded, eyebrows rising. “Goes right over their heads ‘til it hits them in the gut. S’why the teachers still like me.” Despite the feelings of someone stomping on their grave and possibly even pre-emptively digging it for them. She didn’t think they’d like her at all if she were adult-sized. “Don’t think they would if I was bigger.”